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'Pacific Rim': A monster challenge for special effects

Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY
Published 3:56 p.m. ET July 9, 2013

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Director Guillermo del Toro talks robots, monsters and reveals why getting 'absolute creative freedom' on his new movie, 'Pacific Rim,' may have ruined him for life. (May 30)
AP

Director Guillermo del Toro and the artists at Industrial Light & Magic made it happen.

The creation of the 250-foot tall robot warrior Gipsy Danger was just one of several monster-size challenges for the special effects wizards behind 'Pacific Rim'(Photo: Industrial Light , Magic, Warner Bros. Pictures)

SAN FRANCISCO — The robot on the computer monitor stands about 13 inches tall. For visual-effects wizard Hal Hickel, the mission was simple: Make audiences believe the metallic creature was real and soared to a height of 250 feet.

"Our No. 1 challenge on this movie was scale," says Hickel, one of the key members of the Industrial Light & Magic team tasked with bringing Pacific Rim to life. "We've animated big before, but not this big."

If ever an effects house needed to earn its keep on a film, Pacific Rim was it. Virtually every frame of director Guillermo del Toro's apocalyptic showdown between subterranean beasts (Kaiju) and man-made robots (Jaegers) is a tech-generated world with a few bellicose actors dropped in for good measure.

Right from the start, the team at ILM — George Lucas' fabled Star Wars-inspired effects company that is now under the Disney umbrella — faced problems. First, there was the fact that giant dinosaurs fighting massive robots would be a rather slow duet, given their size. The movie threatened to wither under the lumbering weight of slow-motion battle scenes.

"So we had to get creative," says Hickel, teeing up a shot on his monitor that places the virtual camera on the fist of the movie's U.S. robot, Gipsy Danger. When Hickel hits ''play,'' the viewer rides along that fast-moving fist as it smacks the jaw of a Kaiju.

"That's where we were able to convey speed," he says. "A fist-cam shot has you riding onboard at 150 miles an hour, as opposed to a wide shot that would show you the action at a slower pace."

The second problem: making sure audiences bonded with the robots enough to care about the outcome of a fight. To tackle that issue, animators made sure Jaegers walked with a gait that was reminiscent of a human's without crossing the line into disbelief.

"These robots have shoulders and hips, like we do, but we had to dive deep into their joints and make sure everything in there moved as it logically would for a machine," he says.

That meant making sure that all the machine-like pistons and connecting rods that animated a joint actually moved whenever a Jaeger took a step, even if those movements are barely discernible to the human eye.

"One of our questions was always, 'Could somebody manufacture that?' And if the answer was no, we started over," says Alex Jaeger, a senior visual-effects art director on the project. "If you think about these robots as battleships, that's where we were going. Every rivet and plate had to make sense. And all the battle damage also had to be reflected on those panels."

That same verisimilitude applied to the steroidal creatures.

Some of them recall animals we know — from gorillas to lizards to serpents — and ILM staffers kept zoological images handy for reference. But from there, things got a bit crazy, with director del Toro stipulating that some creatures would spit acid, while others would create electrical firestorms. And each had to have a set of distinctive glowing eyes.

"Guillermo was all over almost every aspect of this film," says Jaeger with a laugh. "Some directors tell you, 'Let's just get it done.' And he'd come to a meeting and say (of a scene), 'Can we make this room feel like it's a hothouse filled with steam?' "

Del Toro readily admits he was like a kid in a toyshop. Although he put the project up for bid, he not-so-secretly hoped ILM would get the job.

"I come from an optical effects background, and I've always had immense respect for what these guys have done," says del Toro, whose surreal sensibilities are on display in movies such as 2006's Pan's Labyrinth. "Often, people working with effects are scolded, 'You care more about the effects than the characters.' But in this case, the effects are the characters."

The Mexican director says working with ILM was "a true partnership, much like the one a director might have with an actor or cinematographer." He pushed the team hard to nail digital effects such as speed of motion, camera angles and hyper-real Jaeger and Kaiju surface details, "from ripped skin to scarred metal plates."

But his ace in the hole was making sure Pacific Rim was rife with deliberate flaws. "Making movies is a lie," he says. "It only works if you fill it with details and mistakes."

So del Toro requested, for example, that the faux lens "shooting" the visual effects be tampered with, sometimes reflecting the impact of water spray, light and even damage.

"In one scene, a Jaeger goes to the edge of the atmosphere, and for that, the lens gets hit with frost," he says. "That's the kind of detail that I wanted. And that's the kind of detail that ILM loved. Rather than them feeling directed by me, it was just me geeking out with them. It was a revelatory experience."

You won't get a souvenir program with a ticket to director Guillermo del Toro's monster movie 'Pacific Rim' (opening wide on Friday), so USA TODAY's Brian Truitt presents a guide to the 25-story-tall robot Jaegers and the equally sizable Kaiju creatures they battle, with insights from del Toro and the art book 'Pacific Rim: Man, Machines & Monsters.'

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Warner Bros. Pictures

Jaegers

Gipsy Danger

The throwback Jaeger piloted by Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) is retro in its design. The blue paint job is inspired by World War II fighter planes -- as is the gun-toting cheesecake pinup girl on the right breastplate -- and it's modeled after New York's Art Deco icons such as the Chrysler and Empire State buildings. Its confident movements, though, are all John Wayne, del Toro says. "The idea is that he would have the proportions of a cowboy leading man. The way Gipsy walks, he has a swagger."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Jaegers

Cherno Alpha

The Russian Jaeger is designed to be a cross between a military armored division and a nuclear power plant. "It has that big reactor on the head, and it's painted like a camouflage tank," del Toro says. "Instantly, you are getting the personality."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Jaegers

Crimson Typhoon

The Chinese robot is akin to "a medieval little warrior," says the director. Unlike the other Jaegers, it's piloted by three people -- Chinese triplets -- instead of the normal two, and its color scheme is based on ancient Asian armor. "It looks like it has Chinese lacquered wood with a little bit of gold on the edges."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Jaegers

Striker Eureka

Need a gigantic Kaiju shrimp tossed on a barbie? Call in the Australian Jaeger, which del Toro likens to a Land Rover. "It is very elegant and the most male of all the robots. It's got a jutting chest and is painted in the camouflage colors of the Australian outback. And it has that bravado of the Australian guys."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Kaiju

Axehead

Del Toro would often have his own American Idol (American Kaiju?) competition to determine which monsters would get voted off his big board and which ones would get assigned to certain attacks. Axehead was the first one chosen to emerge from the ocean, and he wrecks San Francisco and its Golden Gate Bridge in the opening sequence. "I liked Axehead because, not revealing him too much, he's one of the Kaijus that has a very distinctive silhouette but we barely see him in those seven or eight shots he's in."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Kaiju

Knifehead (Concept)

This shark-like figure, who goes up against Gipsy Danger in Alaska, represents a more fully evolved version of Axehead and the subsequent monster, Bladehead. "That head is very, very brutal and very clear," del Toro says. "The names define who they are in a very unsubtle way."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Kaiju

Knifehead (Film)

This shark-like figure, who goes up against Gipsy Danger in Alaska, represents a more fully evolved version of Axehead and the subsequent monster, Bladehead. "That head is very, very brutal and very clear," del Toro says. "The names define who they are in a very unsubtle way."

Keith Thompson

Kaiju

Onibaba (Concept)

The crabby Onibaba, who eyes young orphan Mako while tearing apart Tokyo, is a cross between a religious shrine and something out of your local fish market. "It has this ornamental element where it looks like a Japanese temple," del Toro says, "and at the same time he's a crustacean."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Kaiju

Leatherback (Concept)

Lumbering but extremely dangerous, Leatherback happens to be del Toro's favorite of his Kaiju "children," he says. "I really, really respond to him on a visceral level. He's absolutely brutal, but I find him kind of adorable." Leatherback looks like a bouncer yet he also has one very intriguing power: He emits a massive electromagnetic pulse that cripples all electrical circuits in his attack on Hong Kong.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Kaiju

Leatherback (Film)

Lumbering but extremely dangerous, Leatherback happens to be del Toro's favorite of his Kaiju "children," he says. "I really, really respond to him on a visceral level. He's absolutely brutal but I find him kind of adorable." Leatherback looks like a bouncer yet he also has one very intriguing power: He emits a massive electromagnetic pulse that cripples all electrical circuits in his attack on Hong Kong.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Kaiju

Otachi (Concept)

As more and more Kaiju emerge from the Pacific Ocean, the more adept their defenses become. Case in point: the highly intelligent and winged Otachi, who is "smart enough that he uses the strategy of the eagle that grabs a turtle and flies really high and then drops it to break it," del Toro says. Except the turtle in this case is a 2,000-ton Jaeger.

Guy Davis

Kaiju

Slattern (Concept)

A "category V" Kaiju, Slattern is the biggest and baddest of them all, says del Toro. "I introduce it almost like a building coming out of the water. It is really, really quite gigantic." While his peers have really short necks, Slattern is notable for his extremely long neck and his half-horn, half-crown noggin. "I wanted to give it almost this demonic shape on the head and to make it the most majestic of all the Kaijus."